


raindrops made this flower bloom

by selinawrites



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, During Canon, Europe, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Steve Rogers, Road Trips, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 11:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18716203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selinawrites/pseuds/selinawrites
Summary: Steve knew, and the knowing was enough.Until it wasn’t, and Bucky was a brainwashed weapon of a terror organization. The knowing was enough, until all Steve knew was that Bucky didn’t even know who he was.—takes place during captain america: civil war where steve recalls his memories with bucky on the road to bucharest





	raindrops made this flower bloom

**Author's Note:**

> dipping my toe into writing stucky as endgame has shattered me  
> this fic takes place right before this scene!
> 
> hope you enjoy reading uwu

When it came to loving, Steve Rogers was told that love was like super glue. It sticks hard and strong and fast. Steve was told that loving meant gluing yourself to surfaces you would rather not be attached to. The only condition was that you do not glue yourself to the floor, because in love, sometimes you had to stand up for yourself.

He thought it was just a silly joke that school teachers used to get the children to stop playing with the Elmer’s glue, or perhaps a cheesy line that soap opera speakers used, but as time seemed to dwindle infinitely he began to realize how much truth the anecdote held.

 

There was a time in a Brooklyn apartment in the hot and hazy summer when Steve was twenty, maybe twenty one. It was a time before the war, before there were bigger things to worry about. Neither of them had a job, neither of them had much luck finding one. They were living on quickly diminishing family money and whatever odd jobs they could pick up to scrape by. The Great Depression wasn’t easy on them, and jobs were hard to come by.

Bucky had always had buzzed-short hair in the summers, it was just easier to maintain. One late afternoon in that hot, warm summer Steve was lounging on the couch, reading a pulp magazine or sketching, he can’t recall. All he knows is that he heard the definitive sounds of a  _ snip _ , followed by a string of colourful language that flowed out of his best friend’s mouth.

He got up slowly and sleepily, as the summer heat seemed to bear a weight of its’ own. Steve knocked once on the already half open bathroom door. “Buck, you alright in there?” He asked softly, to no response. 

 

Steve slowly opened the door to see sheepish Bucky Barnes with tufts of hair at his feet and a pair of rusting scissors in his left hand. Bucky’s hair in the winter times always fell just under his earlobe, cutting his hair short with kitchen scissors and a razor in the hours when Steve wasn’t around. 

Bucky looked back at Steve, the luminescence of the bathroom lights painting him in a garish, yet still flattering light. “I just didn’t want to have my hair so short this summer.” He said quietly. Steve shook his head with a grin, understanding his friend’s only way of asking for help. “Wanted a change,” Bucky whispered. Smiling to himself, Steve stood behind Bucky and took the pair of scissors. 

Wordlessly taking a seat on the bathroom counter, Bucky looked down as his friend clipped off the uneven strands of hair he failed to miss. Steve worked quietly and quickly, only using one-worded responses whenever Bucky had to turn his head. The sun was dipping low into the horizon at this point, and the sound of metal scissors snipping filled the air. 

As Steve was evening out the very front of Bucky’s face, he used his free hand to lift Bucky’s chin, tilting his head ever so slightly towards the infinite heavens. Bucky closed his eyes, the setting sun painting him in dripping golden light, vintage mirrors in their bathroom refracting light in ethereal doses. A small smile spread over Bucky’s lips, sweeter than honey and with a restless energy that the universe could never seem to contain.

 

There was a time in Steve’s life, when he was too young to be foolish. There was a time where Steve was in a Brooklyn apartment one summer giving his best friend a haircut —and something stuck.

A sticky, syrupy substance made of tousled hair, loud thoughts, a penchant for routine and the scent of a hot day after a rain shower stuck in Steve Rogers’ heart. And as Steve looked up at Bucky, there was a wordless exchange between them. Bucky’s own super glue of loving, his own terror of  _ knowing _ , it was there on display for Steve to see.

Steve had loved Bucky, it was part of who he was. If they were two people in another life, then it might have been easier. But in that moment, both of them loved each other so honestly. Steve should have kissed Bucky while he could.

They say that love is superglue, and Steve found himself stuck even after all these years.

 

After all these years Steve hearkened back to this memory, a memory shared by two but remembered by one. Steve carries it with him but visits it rarely, only in the quiet of the night drinking in liquid galaxies alone.

For all the years of his life, Steve knew that was enough. The  _ knowing _ was enough. Knowing Bucky felt the same as Steve without needing words. Knowing Bucky would kiss any girl he pleased but still chose their crappy one bedroom apartment each night. Knowing Bucky was for Steve as Steve was for Bucky. They were pushing their luck being two young men in an apartment together living in the 1940s, but it was a different time and the timing couldn’t have been better—or worse.

Steve finds himself thinking of this Brooklyn sunset in the passenger seat while Sam Wilson drives the A6 motorway as they leave Paris, as Steve basks in one sunset too many for a lifetime.

 

Sam volunteered to drive the nine hours from Paris to Milan only a few hours before. He watched the shadows play on his Steve’s sunken face while at a cafe in Paris. While Steve would never admit it, he was losing more hope with every city they visit that doesn’t contain one particular Bucky Barnes. They were drinking coffee on a terrace earlier in the morning and Sam heard, very quietly, Steve chuckle to himself.

Steve looked out at the twinkling lights of Paris and smiled sadly. “Bucky would have loved this.” He said solemnly, promising to take Bucky to Paris when Steve gets him back. Steve had been running himself into the ground the past two months driving around Europe for Bucky, and Sam felt a moral obligation to step in and drive in the late hours of the night for fear of his friend’s mental capacity.

One day, Sam will ask his friend what was the deal between him and Bucky. He knew that Bucky was Steve’s best friend, but he had never seen anyone tear themselves apart just to painstakingly rebuild each morning as Steve did for Bucky. Sam has a dozen questions on his lips, questions he knows he will never get the time of day to ask.

And so, Steve Rogers finds himself in the passenger seat of a Mini Cooper, watching the French motorway lights pass in a blur. He closed his eyes, praying to any divine being out there to grant his sleep devoid of any metal-armed boys.

* * *

 

The sounds of pages turning, pens clicking, and the faint tangy scent of oil paints fill the air in the  _ Biblioteca Sormani  _ library. Steve’s hands spread out an old, curled map that smells like vanilla and charcoal pencils. He got out a handful of thumbtacks, so old the colour had since faded off into a monochromatic brown. He placed one pin back in Washington, DC—where his endeavours for Bucky began. Steve then placed one pin in Paris, France. He had spent two days there, but his inner  _ scrawny kid from Brooklyn  _ was telling him that Bucky was just not there. (That, and a quick call to Natasha Romanoff asking if she could use her plausible omnipotence to check surveillance for James Barnes in Western Europe. Results were negative. Natasha began to tell Steve where Bucky’s whereabouts were, but he hung up before receiving any possible leads. Just the thought of surviving S.H.I.E.L.D, HYDRA, KGB, or otherwise surveillance operatives keeping a close watch on his friend made his skin crawl.) He knew that Bucky was last seen in Bucharest, Romania, but Steve wanted to make sure all of the big cities within driving distance of Bucharest were checked out as well.

 

Steve placed another pin right on top of the _Biblioteca_ _Sormani_ Milan, Italy. He was glad that he told Sam Wilson to take the day off and go sightseeing, because his hands got progressively shakier as he placed three more pins down. Venice, Italy. Zagreb, Croatia. Bucharest, Romania.

Steve knew deep in his heart that Bucky had to be somewhere in Bucharest, or at least somewhere in Romania. He knew that Bucky was in Romania, but he also knew that it would take a few days for the CIA to catch on. He was just biding his time before the inevitable occured.

It was another memory buried deep in his heart, a memory shared by two and yet only remembered by one. 

 

Bucky and Steve were only sixteen years old when they were spending the summer at Coney Island. It became routine to them after so many years of friendship, that the Tuesdays in the summer were dedicated to Coney Island no matter the weather. It resulted in the two boys getting drenched in rain water while trying to swindle the bartender at the local club that they were of legal age to try two Southside Cocktails before the rumours of Prohibition caught up to them.

Steve walked alongside Bucky at the end of their day, sun relentlessly bearing down on them. They sat down at the very tip of the pier, beat up sneakers casting shadows over the murky Atlantic. There they were—just two boys, made of stained glass and unforgivable sadness.

They counted their quarters at the end of their day, Bucky letting out a string of expletives. “Damn it! ‘Coulda sworn I spent only five quarters instead of six.” He exclaimed.

Steve’s mouth flattened into a thin line, knowing the struggle a little too well. James Buchanan Barnes was the eldest child of four, with immigrant parents at times on the precipice of war. For the most part, there was hardly any money to go around. There were always starving mouths to feed, kids with bruised knees who longed for a life more than this. Between the two of them—the eldest child of immigrant parents and the only kid of a single mother, money was always too tight between them for their liking.

Steve looked back at his friend, as Bucky’s dark circles and even darker humour seemed to get grimmer by the day. There was always a hunger in Bucky, a desperate dream of someplace better than  _ “Friggin’ Coney Island, man.” _  Bucky had a craving to be the change the world was seeking, but with every passing day hope dwindled into mute anger.

 

Steve bumped his shoulder up against Bucky’s. “Everything alright, Buck?” He asked with a toothy grin.

Bucky had an unshakable habit of plastering a smile and pretending everything was fine, as if misery was only the in between moments between concocting dastardly plans to flirt with waitresses and steal nickels off of his siblings. Steve prepared himself for another one of Bucky’s trademark smiles. He braced for Bucky to shake his head and smile, corners too tight for his liking. Bucky would look at Steve and shake his head. “Don’t worry about me, Stevie. What we ‘oughta worry about is how to make your body big to make your big mouth.”

Instead, Bucky sighed. He was not the same kid anymore. They were older, wiser, and it always showed. “Why don’t we have any money, Stevie?” He said simply.

Steve sighed and looked down at the ripples of the water as Bucky continued. “My ‘Ma and ‘Pa came to America for a better life.  _ Better than Romania,  _ they say.” Bucky said, utilizing his best Romanian accent. It made Steve laugh, a soft bubble that only Bucky could coax out despite dire circumstances.

 

They looked out at the horizon line between the sky and sea. “One day I’ll go back to Romania.  _ Better than America _ , I’d tell them.” He said with another flamboyant accent, smiling with happiness that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Bucky never talked about his Romanian roots as explicitly as he did that day on the pier, but Steve could see inklings of Bucky’s blood in his friend’s actions. Steve could never relate. Bucky’s parents were from Bucharest—his, from grand old Garden State, the forgettable Livingston, New Jersey. He didn’t grow up the same way Bucky did, with a yearning for his past, eyes searching every empty alleyway for the secrets of his parents lives before they had children, before they boarded a boat safer than their own land.

Steve visits this memory, soft and sweet against the backdrop of summer. “One day I’ll go back to Romania.” Bucky had told Steve, with outright conviction. “ _ Better than America _ .” He said in his best Romanian accent. Steve laughed, and something stuck.

 

He didn’t know it yet, but it was the same sticky, syrupy sweetness that he carried through his life. It was the same type of amber coloured super glue that Steve felt coursing through his veins three years later in a Brooklyn apartment cutting the same boy’s hair. It was love, and it was there all along. The love and respect and downright  _ adoration _ Steve held for Bucky, it was always there.

* * *

 

Steve was shaking now. What started as a small tremble had spread through all regions of his body, as if a arctic vortex was being pushed right into him. He was glad—downright thankful—that Sam Wilson wasn’t present to see Steve in such a tender moment. As Steve took a step back and looked at his journey to find Bucky all mapped out, he felt a terrible sort of dread coursing through his body. He took a step back from his library table and walked out of the  _ Biblioteca  _ as quick as he could. Once he was out, Steve broke out into a sprint. He was running rapidly, but this time from an invisible enemy, something more sinister than he had ever faced before.

 

Steve regained his bearings and sat down in the middle of a  _ piazza _ . He watched as the Milano locales strolled around at a leisurely pace. Even on a Monday morning, the spring that ventured across the tendrils of summer made everyone walk at a slower pace. Steve knew that if he was in Manhattan or the Bronx right now, there would be a million people walking a mile a minute. 

His heart stopped hammering in his chest, a violent thrumming now made into a decent hum in his veins. Steve still felt like life was holding its’ breath, as if there was a gaping hole in his soul and there was something missing in his life—but perhaps he would always feel like this.

Steve began to slink back into the back alleys and all the side roads where he knew he would never get recognized in pursuit of going back to his hotel, where Sam Wilson would stare at him with a million questions he would never have the courtesy of asking.

 

There was only one question in Steve Rogers’ mind, and he refused to acknowledge it.

Steve never slowed down to stop and think. Not the next day, where they divided the city into sectors and methodically sorted through each one, threatening whoever seemed knowledgeable enough in Winter Soldier affairs. Steve didn’t slow down while interrogating Italian HYDRA rogues, or chasing Arnim Zola sympathizers into ditches. Steve didn’t slow down until the very last lead they had croaked out a panicked; “I don’t know who the fuck Bucky Barnes is!”

Steve didn’t slow down until he was forced to. He didn’t stop and think until it was him and Sam on the road again, until it was only him and his brain for the next three hours until they reached Venice.

There was only one question in Steve’s mind, and he knew the answer plain as day.

 

_ What if Bucky never remembers _ ?

 

What if Bucky never remembers how they used to sneak into jazz halls from the back entrance and listen to soulful singers play music from the rafters? What if Bucky never remembers the way his face crinkled up whenever someone called him  _ James _ or  _ Jim _ ? What if Bucky never remembers the time Steve got punched in the face and his lips swelled up? The way Bucky laughed before pressing ice through a kitchen rag onto Steve’s face? What if Bucky never remembers how he would sigh, look at Steve mournfully and say, “They really didn’t need to give you a bigger mouth than you already have, Stevie.”

What if all of Steve’s sentences to Bucky will have to begin with; “Bucky, Buck,  _ Bucky.  _ Do you remember Brooklyn, when we were young and things were easy? I know we’re still young and things were never easy, but do you remember when…”?

What then, when Bucky tells Steve; “No. I don’t remember.”

Steve knows the answer. If Bucky can’t remember the same way that Steve can’t forget—Steve would never be able to live with himself.

 

He’s sitting in the back seat of their Mini Cooper while Sam Wilson scats to some song from a time when he was still in the ice. Sam doesn’t dare look back into the other seats, and Steve closes his eyes.

Hot and salty tears run violently down his cheeks. (Because, nothing Steve ever does or ever will do will be peaceful and anything but violent. It is in his making, it is his destiny.) His tears taste like the bitter nights after the battle on the helicarrier. They taste of forgotten birthdays, pretending to be okay, breakfasts at three in the morning, and the taste of blood he can never get rid of. They taste like the oceans back in Brooklyn, the same ones that smell like bitter tangerines and pumpkins in the 21st century. They’re every single rain shower that Steve had taken cover from, the same ones Bucky had danced around in. 

His tears taste like salvation, like the raindrops you never want to greet.

* * *

 

Venice is all saturated pastels and the overwhelming feeling of not belonging. Sam and Steve sit by the Grand Canal with shades on, viewing passersby through stolen copies of  _ Il Gazzettino,  _ reading newspapers in a language Steve never had the time to learn.

Steve smiled to himself, another sharp moment of serenity and stinging loneliness. He knows that if Bucky were here, he would have loved all this. Bucky was a pseudo-polyglot of sorts, always able to pick up languages on the fly. Steve never did get to ask Bucky if he knew any Italian, but figuring the fact that Bucky had two Italian neighbours and lived in a more Western European neighbourhood than that of his relatives living down in Sheepshead Bay. He wouldn’t be surprised if Bucky was here a week ago ordering an espresso in flawless Italian.

And yet, Italy was such an easy target Steve figured that Bucky was either too dumb to pick it or too smart to consider any other option. Venice was never a dream, but as he strolls down the  _ Fondamenta Papadopoli _ park against the Grand Canal, it felt like the goal all along.

 

Steve gets away with walking aimlessly around the park for one more day until Sam stops him on their last day in Venice. There’s a man outside their breakfast cafe with long hair and a black jumper that looks well worn. His skin is pale, stark and quite frankly garish. He turns around, and Steve frowns. The man has heterochromia stricken eyes—one blue and one green. Now facing right at Steve, he looks nothing like Bucky. He’s too drawn, jaw too wide. His hair is curlier and has red undertones instead of Bucky’s amber highlights—and then Sam’s voice comes back with startling clarity.

 

“Steve!” Sam exclaims, throwing down his third copy of  _ Il Gazzettino  _ in three days. “Are you even listening, man?”

Steve blinked twice and took off his shades, squinting in the early morning sun. “Sorry. You were saying?”

Sam took a deep breath. “I was  _ saying _ , maybe we should head back home. Tony said they’ve got some stuff we could really help with.” 

Steve looked at Sam right in the eye. “It’s Bucky,” was all Steve said, sounding small and resigned. “I can’t just  _ go _ . It’s  _ Bucky _ .” He repeated with more insistence.

Sam bit down on his lip, trying to prevent the words he was about to say with no avail. “Bucky might not even remember you. Are you sure he’s worth all this effort?”

Steve looked at Sam with a newfound fury in his eyes. He got up from their table and threw down his copy of the newspaper, glaring straight at his friend. “I don’t know if Bucky’s worth all this. But he has to be.”

* * *

 

Zagreb, Croatia from Venice was approximately four hours and thirty seven minutes away. It was a relatively straight route, driving via the A4 motorway for three hours without any need to pay attention to the direction. They were only staying in Zagreb for a few hours or less, since just as Sam had said; “Sharon Carter told us that the CIA has plans to take Bucky dead or alive. His last location was a fruit stand in Bucharest, Romania. He isn’t here. Let’s be quick about this, we still have eleven hours between us and him.” 

Steve felt bad for how he chastised Sam, how he refused to return back to the New Avengers Facility like a petulant child. He thanked Sam ostentatiously and volunteered to drive to Croatia. He was driving along silently without the drone of the radio, and Sam had been sleeping for the last ten minutes in the back seat. Steve felt guilty at how he acted in the morning when he shouldn’t be anything but grateful. Steve barely knew the man, but Sam was already willing to take a bullet for him.

It wasn’t dissimilar to Bucky’s unfailing and infragile loyalty, the same type of pure unadulterated energy radiating off of Sam. Steve knew there was good in the world, and he saw it in Sam and his old friend Bucky Barnes.

 

Steve hadn’t answered the incessant knocking at his door. He was thirteen, it was winter, and he was sick. Steve didn’t want to look at Bucky’s shallow face as Steve had to mumble out an apology to his closest friend while giving Bucky a tragic smile. He had hoped that Bucky got the message after ten minutes of knocking, but a bewildered Steve Rogers instead was met eye to eye with his friend. 

 

“How did you get in?” Steve asked through a hoarse voice. He sounded like death. Hell, for a thirteen year old kid he might as well been feeling like death. 

Bucky smirked and held up a metal key. “I know your mom keeps one under the mat.” He said with an eye roll, albeit looking around Steve’s home as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. It wasn’t Bucky’s first time in Steve’s apartment. There would always be a vague familiarity to the home, with portraits of a father Steve never knew and a man Bucky never met. Steve was sprawled out on the couch, cold hands looking over the way rain fell on a bitter winter day through their windowsill.

Steve smiled. “I can’t make snowballs with you, Buck. ‘Doc says I have scarlet fever. Ma’s taking a double shift and she told me I can’t leave the house.”

Bucky’s smile never faltered. “I know.” He said, taking a seat at the foot of Steve’s couch. “Your mom told me that, too.” Bucky stared back at Steve, as Steve examined his messy hair and rumpled clothes. The scapes on Bucky’s knees from their last scrimmage versus some neighbourhood boys had yet to heal. Even when both of them were just thirteen years old—not much history between them yet—Steve knew that Bucky Barnes would always be sort of sad inside.

“Then why are you here?” Steve asked weakly, pushing his morose thoughts out of his brain for the meantime.

Bucky smiled—and there it was again. A sticky feeling spreading all over Steve’s nervous system. Even as Steve was sick and shaking like a leaf, Steve felt love’s glue spreading all over him like a balm. It got more and more frequent as he got older, and more and more unavoidable as Bucky spent time around him. “Why do ‘ya think, Stevie? I’m here to take care of your puny ass.”

 

The two of them spent the night like that, with Steve lying down on two thirds of the couch and Bucky sitting on the other third. For as long as Steve had known Bucky, his friend had some sort of cabin fever. Bucky could never sit still, he was perpetually waiting to wake up and go outside and explore the world and stay up late each night dreading sleep. He was always dragging Steve out of the house to explore every inch of New York, from the Bronx to Queens. That was Bucky’s shtick. He always radiated the type of energy that made people want to cancel all plans and travel the world without a map nor a dollar to their name.

They traded secrets at 2am with hands wrapped around mugs of hot chocolate. Bucky pulled out a Polaroid camera he stole from his father and took a photo of Steve with hot cocoa stained all around his mouth. Steve shot Bucky a half glance as both of them smiled to themselves. 

 

“Wanna know a secret?” Bucky asked in the safety of the secret of the night, darkness cradling them like newborn children.

Steve closed his eyes, letting himself succumb to the tendrils of sleep with the scent of sage and emptiness wrapping around him like an old friend. “Sure.” Steve croaked out.

“I kissed a girl yesterday. Behind the schoolyard.” Bucky said, and Steve didn’t need to open his eyes to know Bucky was smiling.

“What was her name?” Steve said sleepily, if just for courtesy’s sake.

Bucky stayed quiet for a very long time. “Elizabeth. I think.” 

Steve let out a breath of air. “You think?” He asked quietly.

“I didn’t enjoy kissing her, Stevie. Do you understand?” Bucky whispered. Steve said yes, even if he didn’t understand.

“She was too soft. And too kind. There wasn’t a firm thing about her. I think all the girls are like that.” Bucky said, with the knowledge of an old man who had kissed many girls. But Steve knew better. Bucky was just a boy in grown man’s clothes.

“Isn’t that just how girls are? Aren’t they all sugar and sweetness and soft?” Steve asked.

“Maybe I like kissing people who are rougher around the edges.” Bucky said, quietly. “You’re not gonna tell anybody about this, are you Stevie?”

Steve smiled, sickness and sleep dragging him under the wind and tide. “I don’t have any other friends, Buck.”

 

It was in that moment that Steve knew with confidence for the rest of his life that Bucky wasn’t like everyone else. Not in the way that the men down in the infantry and legions would whoop and holler at the girls, not even in the way that Tony Stark made crude jokes but still looked at Pepper Potts like she was the sun. Bucky looked at everyone—not just girls—the way that Peggy looked at Steve. It was in that moment when Steve knew Bucky just might be able to love Steve the way Steve loves Bucky.

He  _ knew _ , and the knowing was enough.

Until it wasn’t, and Bucky was a brainwashed weapon of a terror organization. The knowing was enough, until all Steve knew was that Bucky didn’t even know who he was.

 

That was why Steve searches every hollow city and every living desert for his friend, his family, his  _ Bucky.  _ Because they have too many memories shared by two but only remembered by one. That is why Steve drives like a madman, across borders that him and Bucky once only read about in history books. Steve searches for Bucky in anyone with a soul because  _ it’s Bucky _ , what more of an explanation does he have to give?

* * *

 

After a short amount of time in Zagreb filling up on gas and foods they might need for the eleven hour drive ahead of them. Sam volunteered to drive the first six hours while Steve sat in the back seat with a giant fuzzy blanket they bought from the local thrift store draped over his lap. A soft drizzle of rain began softly pattering on their car’s roof, and Steve watched raindrops roll down the car windows in the hazy lamplight an hour before sundown. He was restless with knowing he would be seeing Bucky tomorrow. He had been spending his time in European cities under the guise of searching for Bucky, when in reality Steve was trying to run away from Bucky.

The Bucky of the 1940s and the Bucky of today were entirely different people, and as Steve got closer to seeing Bucky he felt as if the gap between the two Bucky’s was too large. He knew Bucky would never be the same, and he felt guilty at how he resented Bucky for that, even if it wasn’t his fault.

 

Steve Rogers’ life was dedicated to helping other people. He had been so damn selfless all his life, and because of that, Steve thought he was entitled to  _ just one _ selfish thought.

Sometimes, on the nights when he was stuck in a dreamless sleep or leafing through receipts found at the bottom of his bag wearing an old faux-vintage shirt, Steve was thankful HYDRA experimented on Bucky.

It was a cynical way of thinking, Steve was sure. He only thought about it on nights he was loneliest, because he would do anything to keep the demons out. Perhaps  _ thankful _ wasn’t the correct word, but Steve was certainly  _ soothed  _ by the thought that Bucky was still with him in this strange new world.

 

Being confined to a car for multiple hours of the day was starting to become much more mundane and a chore than Steve initially expected. Steve settled in to get a few hours of rest, because in the morning there would be a reckoning, of sorts.

His mind kept looping in circles of all the things he wanted to tell Bucky but just might never get the chance to say them.

 

_ Please tell me you remember, Bucky.  _ Steve would say, trying not to sound desperate and totally failing.  _ Please tell me you remember what you said when we first met _ .

 

“What’s your name?” Bucky had asked, as he slung his arm around his newfound friend. They were ten, bruised, and bleeding all over. It was autumn, more warm than cold. They were in the fourth grade, studying in a schoolhouse that needed constant renovation.

“Steve.” Steve replied. If Bucky hadn’t rolled his soccer ball to the back of the schoolyard by accident, he wouldn’t have seen this little kid getting beat to hell. And if Bucky hadn’t stepped in to give the assailant a taste of his own medicine, heaven knows the state Steve would have been in.

“How old are you, Steve?” Bucky asked, puffing his chest out to seem grown.

“M’ten.” Steve had mumbled out through swollen lips. The story goes, someone had said something offensive, a  _ slur _ , towards his classmate because he had a different skin colour. Steve didn’t like that. He didn’t like how the white boys picked on everyone else. They picked on the girls too small to defend themselves and the boys for being a little bit more tan.

“Bullshit!” Bucky exclaimed. “I’m ten too! ‘Ya sure you’re not six? You’re just so….small.”

Steve squinted up at Bucky. “Language!” He chastised in a squeaky voice that had never tasted the drops of pubescence.

Bucky smiled as the two of them walked down to Steve’s apartment. He laughed at everything Steve said, and Steve liked that. He liked being seen. More importantly, he liked being seen by Bucky, this boy he just met. And just like that, a friendship was forged.

 

Steve had loved Bucky from the moment they met. He was yet to learn about the superglue of loving, but as Steve heard Bucky’s laugh, he knew. It would be Steve and Bucky ‘til the end of the line.

* * *

 

The anonymous tip that allowed the CIA to be right on Bucky’s trail was unfortunate for Bucky, but it did allow Steve to triangulate the position of Bucky’s apartment easier. He knew it was probably immoral and definitely illegal, but if he wanted to get to Bucky before the CIA put a bullet in his best friend, some home invasion would have to suffice.

 

Government employed agents were already closing in on Bucky’s location by the time Steve was inside. He scanned the room and frowned. It was a bare bones living situation, with all the windows plastered over with newspaper. There seemed to be little to none of Bucky’s belongings except for a notebook on the top of the fridge. In their apartment back in Brooklyn there wasn’t a single surface that Bucky hadn’t imbued personality into. There were train tickets and movie stubs plastered on the walls like art pieces. Photo booth prints of him and Steve affixed to the wall with clear scotch tape. Notes of poetic musings and elementary school essays that always concluded with the words  _ the end _ . More of Bucky’s personality was written on the walls than Steve’s, but Steve didn’t mind. Steve would never admit it, but a part of him liked living in Bucky Barnes’ bubble. Bucky was so full of  _ life,  _ of  _ personality.  _ It was unsettling now to see a living space occupied by Bucky with no hint of individualism.

 

Steve knew he shouldn’t have gone through Bucky’s things, but his plan was always to draw Bucky out—not hunt him down. There were hastily written words, most of them in languages Steve didn’t know. There was one photo of himself, the same one they give out on the Smithsonian brochures.

 

"Heads up, Cap. German Special Forces approaching from the south." Sam Wilson had said into Steve's earpiece.

"Understood." Steve had said back in a clipped tone. That gave him approximately thirty seconds to a minute in order to draw out Bucky. A question was forming at the tip of his tongue and the forefront of his brain... and then, he heard it. Only the softest of footsteps heard by the man with super soldier serum flooding his veins. Bucky Barnes, in the flesh.

 

Steve took one look at Bucky, and he falls in love all over again. Bucky’s hair was longer than the last time Steve saw Bucky. He was wearing a cap on his head and looked considerably less frightening when wearing casual civilian clothes and not the mildly bone chilling Winter Soldier garb. Steve’s eyes flick down to Bucky’s metal arm, which he kept firmly tucked in his pocket. Tears and raindrops. Love and flowers. All the way around and over again. Steve wants to ask Bucky a million things.

 

_ Hey Bucky, it’s me. How did you end up in Romania? Was it everything you dreamt of? Is it better than America like you wanted? Are you gonna cut your hair, it keeps falling in your face. I missed you, Bucky. It’s me, the guy you called Stevie no matter how many times I told you not to call me that. Did you pass by Venice on the way here? Can you speak Italian? What about French? Did you stay up and stare unto moonlit lakes because waking was just as bad as sleeping? Did you think of me, because I thought of you every second since that mask fell. Above all, please tell me you fell in love with these moments like how you fell in love with me. Do you remember that night when I clipped your hair? Did you feel the way I felt?  _

 

Steve had so many questions to ask, but as he looked more insistently into Bucky’s eyes he knew deep down that they had to go back to the basics. They had to rebuild Bucky’s memories, but they would do it together. “Do you know who I am?” Steve asked hesitantly, when he would rather ask;  _ Do you know how much pain you caused me? You didn’t ask me to search the stars for you, but I did it once and I’d do it again. _

The corners of Bucky’s lips quirked upwards and his eyes glazed over in familiarity—and that was all Steve needed. It gave him hope that the Bucky that Steve knew and loved was inside. Bucky just needed help finding himself. 

 

“You’re Steve.”


End file.
